The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.49 No.1 | June 2022

Local Group Programmes

(April) Brick Walls in Family History – Ian Waller. Our organiser Kay masterminded a very successful Romsey first this evening; a hybrid event where some members were physically present at Crosfield Hall while others, including our speaker, joined via Zoom. 'Brick walls.... I call them research challenges' stated Ian at the outset and then suggested many steps to help us make that all important breakthrough, including recommending detailed analysis of existing research, exhorting us to take care to not inadvertently mix up like-named generations, and importantly, to truly appreciate the limitations of records. A fascinating fact to emerge was that an average ancestor will appear in as many as 100 documents, but not many of those will appear online, in fact only about 15% can be accessed this way. 'Civil registration is our biggest nightmare' he concluded, illustrating his point by various references, including the fact that the registration of births was not compulsory until 1875, that deaths are registered where they occur and that many census returns are missing. But he left us with a sense of optimism that we can make enough progress to be able to knock down at least one of those pesky brick walls. Forthcoming Meetings:

My Czech Roots

June 6th July 4th

Margaret Bowman

The History and Mystery of Funeral

Susan Flipping

August 1st Tour of Hampshire Record Office [tbc] September 5th Mixing DNA Results with a Paper Trail

Dr Penny Walters

Contact: Tony Sinclair Tel: 07518 183211 winchester@hgs-online.org.uk

Winchester

Meetings are normally at 7:15pm on 3rd Thursdays in the Littleton Millennium Hall.

(February) Behind the Scenes of "Who Do You Think You Are" – Nick Barratt It was estimated that there were 150 devices logged in to hear the talk by Dr Nick Barratt. We welcomed members not only in the UK but from overseas too, such is the power of Zoom! The President of the Hampshire Genealogical Society had around 300 people listening intently. Dr Barratt was talking about his work on “Who Do You Think You Are”. The programme was first broadcast on 18 years ago and Nick led the research in the first four seasons of the programme. He explained his PhD was not as a genealogist but in 13th century history. This did not prepare him for a working life but he found work in the Public Record Office to help other historians. Nothing prepared him that most historians, as genealogists aren’t perceived as historians and not seen as serious. Most people are just interested in their families seen

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